3. Cathedral welcomes allThe Cathedral extends a special invitation to participate in a liturgy, spend time in prayer, or take a self-guided tour should your or your parishioners’ summer plans include a visit to downtown Milwaukee.

Doors are open at the Cathedral 7:30am to 6:00pm Monday through Saturday, and on Sunday from 7:30am until 1:00pm. Weekday Masses are celebrated in the day chapel at 7:45am, Monday through Saturday, and at 5:15pm, Monday through Friday.

Saturday’s Mass of Anticipation is celebrated at 5:15pm, and Sunday Masses are celebrated at 8:00, 9:30 and 11:00am.

OK, fine. It is the mother church of the Archdiocese and all that stuff, but why can't St. John's draw people through its doors by virtue of what it has to offer? Oh, yea, it has nothing to offer.

The fact that the Weaklandista rector of the Cathedral, Fr. Carl Last (of Call to Action fame) wants to advertise the primary purpose of the Cathedral as a tourist attraction, not only devalues what a Cathedral Church could and should be, it drastically overestimates the tourist appeal of this wreck-o-vated edifice.

My questions for Fr. Carl free-at-Last:

What, no confessions? Ever?When I get there, where is the perpetual adoration chapel? Or any adoration?Are there any Catholic devotions offered? Rosary, OLPH, Divine Mercy Chaplet?

4 Comments:

I changed to Cathedral Parish from another parish because of all it offers --- at Cathedral I can serve as well as be served, even though I am quite disabled and, by most folk's standards, quite destitute (there are weeks I cannot go to Mass, not because I'm ill or the weather is dangerous, but simply because I don't have $6.50 for the transit fare).

By the way, confessionals are staffed Wed, Thurs, and Friday from 4:15-5:15 or so, even though only about a mile away is a parish specializing in confession and spiritual direction with multiple confession periods every day, which many Cathedral parishioners frequent.

And don't neglect Morning Prayer. Mon-Sat 7:15 am, or the large prominent, well-used adoration area with the Tabernacle of the Lord.

Those are good things to hear. But the central problem is that Fr. Last speaks first and foremost of "self-guided tours" even before giving mass times, and completely ignores confessions, adoration, or devotions.